


Just One Last Time

by lynne_monstr



Category: Leverage
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Highlander Fusion, Mentions of Eliot/Parker/Hardison, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4783838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynne_monstr/pseuds/lynne_monstr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot is immortal. The Leverage team was not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Character Appreciation Week on tumblr. 
> 
> And because every fandom needs some kind of Highlander crossover/fusion thing, as far as I'm concerned.

Eliot felt the presence of another immortal well before the shadow stepped into place beside his own, darkening the otherwise bright green grass at his feet. He squinted against the bright sunlight but didn’t bother to look or otherwise react. He already knew who it was.

A voice he’d known for centuries broke the silence. “How many times must you do this to yourself before you learn? Mortals…they always die in the end.”

Damien Moreau always managed to show up at the worst possible times in Eliot’s life, and today apparently wasn’t gonna be the exception.

Eliot shifted the parcel in his hands so it was physically out of reach of the other man. “You here to gloat? ‘Cause I’m really not in the mood, and I swear, I’ll…” The words dried up on his tongue like the ashes in the urn tucked under his arm. The anger that had flared like a spark smothered beneath the weight of his grief. “Doesn’t matter,” he finished, gazing unseeing into the distance. “There ain’t anything you have to say that I want to hear.”

“Allow me to offer my sympathies anyway.”

There was a moment of disorientation, and for a split second he struggled to recall whether they were friends or enemies this time around. The weight of the centuries stacked up on top of each other and blurred together. It was 2073 in Atlanta on a sunny day outside a small funeral home, but it was also 2001 in Belgrade—

_(The rush of immortal presence mixed with the adrenaline of resuscitation made Eliot want to throw up, but there was nothing in his stomach; he’d died of starvation along with the rest of his strike team._

_The blur of his cell resolved itself into the sharp features of the one man he never wanted to see again. A piece of paper was held outstretched between manicured fingers. “My condolences on your team.” His smile was pleasant but his eyes were cold. “I have a job for you. Do this for me, and all the information I have on who betrayed you is yours.”_

_Eliot looked at the bodies of his team, his friends, and took the paper.)_

—and it was 1820 in New York City and 1612 in Marseilles. And Prague and Constantinople and Jerusalem, and on and on. They’d played out this moment so many damn times, like a well-worn dance except the music never stopped.

Eliot knew what came next and he was ready to get off the ride. It would end, and it would end here and now. The sound of the wind rustling through the painstakingly manicured shrubs was all he had to say. This time he would walk away.

Idly, he wondered if Moreau envisioned a different type of final ending as well, if he was here to kill Eliot. Under the draping of Moreau’s long coat, his practiced eye could recognize the rapier Moreau favored. Eliot himself hadn’t carried a sword in ages. Why bother, when he could just take the other guy’s?

A soft laugh sounded beside him, and he set the thought aside when no attack came. If Moreau wasn’t here to fight, then neither was Eliot. He didn’t like the guy, but killing him had never sat right, even after they’d fallen out for good.

“Always so stubborn, Eliot. I remember when—”

“It’s Brent now,” Eliot interrupted. “Eliot’s dead. He died twenty four years ago in a car crash.”

It was around the same time he’d given up pretending to be contemporaries of Parker and Hardison when they all went out in public. It had been strange at first, going around with them acting as their nephew rather than their partner, and they’d all had a good laugh at the looks people used to give them when one of them slipped up and kissed him. He was pretty damn sure Parker used to do it on purpose. He spared a glance at the tiny urn tucked against his chest and felt a fresh wave of pain, worse than any physical beating.

“Of course. Brent.” Damien rolled the name around on his tongue like he was sampling one of his fine wines. “It suits you,” he finally decided, as if Eliot cared a whit about anything his former employer – former friend, if he was honest with himself – had to say.

“What do you want, Damien?” he finally asked. If the millennia had taught him one thing, it was that the best way to deal with the machinations of the man next to him was to cut through the bullshit and confront him head on.

“Damien Moreau died in prison in San Lorenzo, if you recall. A tragic fire. Pity there was nothing left to identify. Though the medical examiner was certain nothing could have survived that level of heat.”

Eliot’s skin itched in sympathy. Fire was a crappy way to go.

“I should kill you for that,” Moreau continued. “You left me there!” For the first time, true anger showed on his face.

He’d felt guilty about that for a long time, but he’d done what he had to do to keep his family safe and he couldn’t regret it. “I could’ve killed you for real rather than letting you rot.”

“It would have been kinder.” The sharp tone of Moreau’s voice cut through his musings, and Eliot turned to look at him.

“No mercy,” Eliot finally replied. “Ain’t that familiar? You taught me that.”

A sneer twisted those pleasant features before Moreau got himself under control. “Don’t flatter yourself. You were well versed in the art of cruelty before we ever met.”

Eliot shrugged. In a way, Moreau was right. But Moreau had found him when he’d been nothing more than a blade for hire, and taught him to wield that violence with deadly precision rather than the blunt weapon which was all he’d known. But he didn’t have the heart for that particular argument, not today, with the ashes of his last friend clutched tight in his hands. So he let it go.

Moreau nodded, reading him without words. It irritated Eliot all over again and he blinked at the unfamiliar rush of emotion that wasn’t grief.

“I have a job for you.” Moreau stepped back, hands raised in a conciliatory gesture as Eliot’s free hand balled into a fist. “You’ll want to take this one, I assure you.”

“I don’t do that anymore.”

“Of course. But there’s a young man who could use your help. He saw something he wasn’t supposed to see and now he’s being threatened. Him and his mother both.”

“For all I know, you’re the one threatening him.”

A small smile spread over Moreau’s face. “Not this time.” He reached into his pocket and produced a phone, one of those shiny new models with the ocular interface that Hardison was always going on about. The thought brought a wave of bittersweet pain to his chest, and it was a struggle not to show the reaction on his face.

Moreau had always been too good at reading him, though. “It hurts me to see you like this. Take the job, Elan. Eliot. Brent. Whatever you’re calling yourself now. There’s nothing in here your little white hat _morals_ —” he spat the word out like a disease, “—would object to.”

Eliot looked at the outstretched arm as if it were a snake waiting in the bushes. Which was exactly what it was. Moreau had a way of getting in his head and under his skin and twisting until Eliot barely recognized himself. This first job would be exactly what he claimed, and maybe the next one would be too. But Eliot had walked this path before and knew exactly where it led. The weight of the urn in his hand suddenly felt like a gun and he blinked, forcing the memory down with the rest. “I ain’t coming back this time,” he said, making no move to take the device.

The two of them had danced this dance too many times to count. It would be different this time, Eliot vowed. It would be different.

When the silence showed no sign of stopping, Moreau finally nodded his head once, conceding the victory. He clasped Eliot briefly on the shoulder and walked away. Partway across the lawn, he paused mid step and turned, a silhouette against the bright midday sun. “Another time, my friend.”

As the last link to his old life walked away, Eliot walked away too.

It was only days later, after he scattered Parker’s ashes, driving out to the same cliff as he’d done for Hardison—

_(“You hate heights, man,” Eliot said, squeezing the wrinkled hand in his own, careful to avoid the many tubes snaking out from his friend’s skin. The harsh antiseptic smell of the hospital made his eyes sting._

_“Yeah,” Hardison said, his chest rattling as he tried to laugh. He smiled at Eliot and over at Parker who held his other hand, as gorgeous in old age as she’d been when they first met. “But Parker loves them.” Then he closed his eyes and didn’t open them again.)_

—that Eliot felt the extra weight in his pocket.

He should throw the damn thing away. Except…

_‘There’s a young man out there that needs your help.’_

Moreau’s words echoed in his ears and his mind immediately thought of Hardison. There was no real reason for it; Hardison hadn’t been young in a long time and even if he was, he’d always been capable of helping himself. But still, Eliot couldn’t shake the image.

He pulled out the phone Moreau slipped him and turned it on.


End file.
